Tips for Posting Testimonials

Don’t fake it.  We’ve all seen sites with testimonials that are unbelievable.  These fake testimonies can quickly ruin your reputation and credibility.  Instead of writing fake testimonials solicit some from your customers.  There is nothing wrong with asking for feedback, this is actually a wise thing to do so you know where you’re doing well and where there’s room for improvement and you can address any issues or concerns.  Not only that but, the best comments can be included on your website.

When you include a testimonial on your site you should include the customer’s full name and location.  If the comment is made on behalf of a business, include the business’ name.  If the individuals have any certifications or titles, include those with their name to enhance their authority. If the person or business has a website, link to it, this will help establish that the testimonial is legitimate.

Including a photograph of the individual making the comment helps to show that the people commenting are real people.  The photos do not need to be professional business photos, this can actually have a negative affect as they sometimes appear to be generic stock photos.

Before posting any comments on your website ask for permission, especially when using their name and location.  Get the consent in writing and keep the signed paper on file.  When asking for permission be sure to let them know they will be identified by name and location.

When selecting which comments to use remember that more specific information tends to be more compelling than generic comments.

You might choose to have a testimonials page on your website which can be quite impressive for perspective customers.  However, to deliver an even greater impact, consider weaving the comments throughout the pages and content of your site.  Testimonials that are included throughout the body of the copy or in the sidebar have a better chance of being read than a page solely dedicated to comments.

Keep all testimonials easy to read.  This in part means that they need to be brief.  They should be kept to five lines of text or less.  If you have an excellent comment that is really long then consider breaking it up into smaller sections that can be scattered throughout the site.

Tips for Getting Testimonials

Instead of writing your own fake customer testimonials ask for feedback.  Most individuals are comfortable giving some type of feedback following a sale or delivery of a service or product so ask for it.

The first step in asking for a testimonial is to have goods and services that will get you the glowing comments you want.  Offer quality products and keep your promises so you will have happy customers and it won’t be hard to get the comments you need for your website.

Next ask for feedback but ask the right way.  If you ask very generic questions you will get generic answers in return.  When you ask specific questions you will get more specific answers.  “Please provide feedback on your recent experience with us” vs. “Please provide feedback on the timeliness of your service appointment” will get you quite different responses.  When you ask specific questions it not only gets you specific answers but it is easier for the individual to provide you with an answer.

If you have a Facebook business page there is a Reviews tab.  Make that tab visible and ask your fans to enter reviews.  Having trouble getting any?  Offer a coupon, a surprise, or make it a drawing and give something away.  Incentives are helpful in eliciting comments.

YouTube reviews should not be overlooked.  Video of your customers talking about and reviewing your goods and services is powerful testimony.  Customers can post videos on their YouTube account and then you can add them to your channel as Favorites.

Local search directories such as Google Places and Yelp allow members to write reviews for local businesses.  These are great places to have reviews since they are seen by potential customers looking for a business like yours.

Conclusion

When visitor attention can be focused on a product or service through the use of focused and specific testimonials you will have a powerful technique to improving conversions.    Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools out there.  It needs to be genuine, succinct, believable, and specific from a real person and when properly used on your website can enhance your credibility and boost conversions.  If you need additional information or help with your website testimonials contact The Net Impact today.

What tactics do you use to gather testimonials from your customers?

Remember, Google considers links as ‘votes’.  So, hypothetically, the site with more votes should rank higher in the Google search engine than a site with fewer votes, or links, because more people like them or find them valuable.  However, that’s not exactly how it works.

Before Google counts the votes it takes into consideration, not only the quantity, but also the quality and relevance of the websites that are linking to yours.  When Google looks at your links they look at what types of websites are linking to yours, how quickly the links were acquired, and the anchor text used for the link.  When the algorithm detects something suspicious such as an unusually large number of new links or an imbalance in the number of times anchor text is used, a red flag is raised.

Many SEO experts have known for years that unique quality content will attract quality links naturally.  These natural link building efforts are beneficial for page rank.

For those who have discovered that their rankings have slipped following the Penguin update it could be due to a penalty or it could be from devalued links pointing to your site.  These are links that were previously helping you to rank higher and now Google is saying those links should not have counted.

Penguin is trying to target manipulative link profiles.  It appears that there is a common theme among sites that have experienced a drop in page rank.  Many seem to have used unnatural linking strategies to gain page rank.  The following are some of the common issues, pay special attention to the first two as those seem to be the dominant concerns:

Links from sites outside the niche – Some links from non-relevant sites are probably okay and may even be beneficial; however, penalized sites typically had very few links coming from domains and websites within the same niche.

Exact match anchor text – Many of the sites affected by the update had a “money keyword” as anchor text for the majority of the incoming links.  Sites that had less than 50% of the incoming links as “money words” were generally not affected.

Paid text links - When a company wants to increase their rank for a specific keyword one strategy is to buy links from other sites with the exact matching anchor text.  Unfortunately this is against Google’s guidelines because the link appears to be used simply to influence the rank and is of little value to site users.

Comment spam – Signatures in blog comments that contain exact match anchor text as well as spam filled user names such as ‘Best Website Designers’ as exact match text have proven problematic following the Google update.

Guest posts – Writing a blog guest post is a reasonable and valid strategy to produce more links for your site.  However, some site rankings were damaged from Penguin because the posts were on blogs with low-quality posts that focused more on anchor text and links than on quality content.

Article sites – Exact match anchor text links from article marketing sites with weak content were also negatively impacted.

Links from bad sites – Links from sites that have been flagged for spam issues, malware, or numerous pop-ups were another cause of page rank loss.

If these strategies make up the majority of your SEO link building plan then you have probably felt the Google slap.  Remember the following as you move forward in your linking strategy:

• Quality content is key to earning natural quality links
• Maintain a balanced use of keywords as anchor text for your links.  Over 50% of the links coming into your site should have anchor text that is not made up of keywords you are trying to rank for.
• Get links from authoritative relevant sites in the same niche as yours
• Evaluate your link profile once a month and work to eliminate low quality links

The text placed inside the heading tags are given priority based on the number following the H in the tag.  The main title of your page should begin with an <h1> tag followed by sub-points or subheadings using <h2> tags and so on.  Tags range from H1, which is the most important, all the way to H6, which is the least important.  H tags make the text in them larger than the normal text on your page.  H1 font is bigger than H2 and H2 is bigger than H3 etc.  H tags should be used with a defined structure for the best results from search engines as well as to enhance the user experience.

The tag should be relevant to the content that it is a part of to make it easy for the reader to navigate.  The keywords for that page should be included in the tags but keep the headers simple and do not keyword stuff, they should read well for the user.  If you stuff your headers with keywords it will hurt you more than it will help you.  As with all content on your webpage, header tags should be created for the user not the search engine.

Correctly using the H1 tag is extremely important to your page rank and your search engine optimization efforts.  Keyword distribution on your web page is one of the most important elements Google uses in its algorithm.  Correctly using the H1 tag in the HTML markup by using your priority keyword phrase for the pages tells Google that this is an important word for the page and it gives the page more weight for that keyword in searches.  The use of the H1 tag on your webpage should be kept to a minimum to make that content really stand out as being important on the page.

H tags are useful to users as they break the content up into manageable, relevant, blocks of text.  Since they act as headlines they make it easier for the user to skim the page and find the information they are looking for.

H tags are a great place to use your keywords and help your SEO.  Headers tell search engines that this information is important.  Search engines use the H tags to categorize the content and analyze it more effectively when they are indexing your website.  Incorrectly used tags in your code can be harmful to your SEO campaign.

There are H tag tools that will help you determine if you are making good use of the headers on your webpage.  Some even offer suggestions of how you can improve the headings of your webpage.  These can be found with a simple Google search.

Contact The Net Impact today to learn more about how your business can benefit from strategic H tags in your SEO campaign!

A helpful internet marketing tactic is to create a customer persona.  The purpose behind creating a customer persona is to really get to know your targeted audience.  You need to understand who is reading your blog, who is buying your products, who is looking for your services.  When you get down to the very basics, when someone reads your blog or searches your website the thing they’re looking for is, “What’s in it for me?”  This means that everything you write, from your blog to your sales copy needs to target the customer persona, the ideal customer for your goods and services.

A customer persona is a fictional character who represents different user types, or customers in a targeted demographic.  When you consider the different types of people that might be coming to your site and what their similarities and differences are you begin to realize that you would not write the same content or design the website in the same way for the wide variety of people you want to target. Even if you have products and services that are for a wide audience, you still need to customize your site and content for the ideal customer.

Customer personas are created from data that you collect through a survey, or some type of interview.  The questions you ask and the information you collect will depend on your industry.  Here are some questions to ask about your current audience to get you started:

• Do you have multiple target audiences?
• What is the age of your typically buyer/reader?
• What level of education have they reached?
• What is the average income level?
• What benefits are important to them?
• What magazines do they read?
• What websites do they visit?
• What concerns, fears, or objections do they have that you need to overcome in your content writing?
• How do they dress?
• What are their hobbies and interests?

Once you’ve gathered the data you can begin to tell a story that is characteristic of that user or customer type.  This will more clearly describe their behaviors, patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment.  When you have a better understanding of your users or customers you are able to better understand what motivates them, and what their expectations and goals are.  Then you are able to make decisions around that information in regard to your website functionality, design, and content.

Using a customer persona helps with the project planning, it helps to define features as well as prioritize features, and it helps with developing content so you set the right tone for your copy.  Creating a customer or user persona will allow you to better cater to the right people in the right places allowing you to generate more quality leads.

Social sharing buttons can be placed on your blogs or web pages and allow people who find your site useful, to share it with someone else.  They can email your page, they can share the link on their Facebook page with all of their friends, they can share it with bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon or DiggIt, or they can Tweet it to their followers, along with a number of other social site sharing opportunities.

Why Use Social Sharing Buttons?

Social sharing is a great way to get your content shared with more people and pull new traffic to your site or blog.  Social sharing buttons make this much easier for your site visitors, they simply click a button and they have shared.

So, what difference does social sharing make?  According to Entrepreneur.com:

Twitter Buttons = Sevenfold Sharing

Websites that display Twitter sharing buttons are linked to on Twitter nearly seven times more often than sites that do not display tweet buttons. Among the 10,000 largest websites, those that feature Twitter share buttons are, on average, mentioned in 27 tweets that contain a link back to the site, whereas those not featuring tweet buttons are mentioned, on average, in only four tweets that contain a link back to the site.

Which Social Sharing Buttons Should You Use?

If you include too many social sharing buttons you can confuse your visitors.  They shouldn’t have to spend too much time considering how they want to share your information.

To determine which sharing buttons would most benefit your site or blog you should check traffic sources in your site’s analytics.  When people come to your site, where are they coming from?  If they never come from the bookmarking sites then you might determine to not include those buttons.  You should know your target audience and understand where they spend time with social media.  If they are all over Facebook then obviously, you must include a Facebook share button.

Giving fewer social sharing options that are more targeted to your audience will make it easier for visitors to choose and share content with their social groups.

Most small business owners have a website of some kind, but many are frustrated with the traffic and leads that the site is generating.  They want to do something to increase their web visibility so they can reach more potential customers.  The answer is frequently to make some website changes so they have a site that is user friendly and that Google appreciates.  The problem is, it’s easier said than done, creating that site isn’t that simple.

There are two important components to a good website aesthetics and functionality.  Many websites for small businesses are often lacking in the search and usability areas.

1. Implement SEO Basics

Small businesses fail to implement SEO basics such as:

• Page titles that use the most popular keywords.  Every page of the website should have a title with the most popular keywords on that page incorporated into the title.
• Keyword research needs to be done and then the keywords need to be used throughout the content in articles, blog posts, services pages, product pages, etc.
• Back-links are necessary.  Your business needs to be listed in the right places to get found by prospects.

2. Use a CMS

Some small businesses try to build their website from the ground up.  Instead they should be using a CMS.  A CMS is a content management system such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or Auctori.  A CMS allows you to easily manage the content on your website with no technical, or HTML, knowledge.  You can easily update, edit, add or delete content and images 24/7 from any computer with internet access.  New images and content will make your users happy as well as the search engines.

3. Content

Another big web development mistake is failing to add fresh content to your site.  Many websites are simply an online brochure.  But to get some organic traffic to your site you need to have fresh content.  An easy way to do this is to have a blog associated with your website.  The blog should then be updated regularly, weekly if possible.  Other fresh content should be written for your site when you have new products or services or when there’s an event or hot topic to share information about.

The way the content is presented is important as well.  Generally, people don’t want to read unless they have to, they prefer to scan for the information they are looking for.  Content should be presented in a way that makes it easy for a visitor to quickly scan your site to find the relevant information.  A logical content hierarchy acts as a guide through each page to create a more user friendly experience.  Using headings and sub-headings break up long pieces of text into easy to read blocks of text.  The importance of spelling and grammar should never be overlooked.

4. Include Contact Information

Another fail of many small business sites is that they omit local address and contact information.  Failing to include this information on the website is a big mistake in this day and age when mobile searches have grown by 400% each year.  Including the contact information in the header or footer of each page of your website helps to build trust with clients, not to mention it adds convenience.

5. A Clear Call to Action

A fundamental error of many small business sites is a lack of a clear call to action.  If a site is simply a brochure of information then you leave the visitors with no action and you lose them.  Getting traffic to your website is important but the traffic doesn’t mean much if the call to action is just a few words that say “click here” in a sea of boring text.

Call to action buttons are needed to grab the visitor’s attention which makes the size, shape, color and position of these buttons important.  The buttons should allow the visitors to find information quickly and easily, they shouldn’t have to search or think about what to do.

When it comes to increasing conversions, event landing pages are an effective, yet sometimes overlooked tool by many marketers. A landing page is a webpage where users are sent once they click on your ad or link in your email marketing blast. The purpose of a landing page is to get your visitors to perform one specific action. A landing page should give your target audience the best chance of converting into a lead or sale.

It is obviously important to capture as much information as possible without being too lengthy. If you require the prospect to complete too many fields of information, they may become irritated and leave the landing page before you are able to capture the prospective client’s lead information.

What are the Key Benefits of an Event Landing Page?

Gather prospective client information. The goal of a landing page is to gather prospective client contact information so you can share valuable insights and updates with them and ultimately convert them to a client. A contact form or a place to register or pay for the event should be easily accessed and positioned in top half of the landing page.

Limited navigation. You do not want to give prospects any excuse to leave the landing page. Limit your navigation to just the essential sections of the site to keep prospects focused on your event and any other information pertinent to your landing page conversion goals.

Leaves room for creativity. An event landing page gives you the flexibility to try a layout and design that may differ from your main site, but may be more conducive or specific to the event you are promoting.

Increase web traffic. Landing pages help you drive traffic to your company website and increases overall brand awareness.

Measure. Landing ages are a great way to easily measure the effectiveness of your external links and online marketing campaigns. Effectiveness of landing pages is highly measureable. Tools like Google Analytics may be used to measure click-thru rates.

Remember, well-crafted landing pages offer event marketers a powerful way to optimize their overall investment. By ensuring that your event landing pages create a positive brand experience, learning from how visitors are interacting with your landing pages and using landing pages to introduce visitors to additional relevant content, you will be well on your way to improving the return on your overall event marketing investment.

Contact The Net Impact today to learn more about our event landing page services!

Links can be directories, social media, blogs, articles, white papers and optimized press releases. Directories are one of the most comprehensive ways to generate incoming links. They are designed to promote links and are sometimes free of charge. Social networks and blogs have also become a great way to generate incoming links to your web site. You should try to control the anchor text of links coming to you as much as possible. Having your best keywords in the link anchor can be a huge help.

When it comes to SEO, linking is a popularity contest. The search engines consider your site more important and rank it higher depending on the number of your sites incoming links. Every link that you do manage to gain, whether it’s from a directory, blog or website, will help build your site’s core strength.

Here are just a few of the benefits of link building:

• Links are viewed as a ‘vote’ for your site
• Inbound links offer a route to your site from other sites
• Links to and from relevant sites help search engines assess what your website’s overall theme is
• A higher link profile can boost your site’s credibility and trust
• More links means more avenues for website traffic to find you
• Improved rankings for your targeted keywords
• Improved search engine robot crawl rate

When mapping out your linking strategy, don’t forget to focus on the quality, in addition to the quantity of the links.   A single, link from a credible website is worth more than dozens of links from junk sites. The relevance of the link and the strength of the site that has provided it, will often determine just how much strength you gain.  If you want to increase the search engine rank of your website, boosts your page rank with the search engines, and generate and increase in the flow of traffic to your site, then quality link building is a profitable investment. Having a good mix of quality and quantity in your inbound links will greatly increase your search engine results rankings and thus, drive more traffic toward your website.

Lastly, do not give up if you are not immediately seeing the positive  results of your linking efforts. The results of an effective linking program do not happen overnight, but rather something that grows over time. Remember, be consistent, be detailed and never stop. Your competitors are not stopping, even if you are ranked number one on Google, you can never stop.

The linking process provided exclusively by The Net Impact assures that links have a smooth feel in the page content, adding to user experience while also contributing effectively to the search engine optimization process. Contact The Net Impact today to learn more about how your business can benefit from a strategic linking campaign!

Source: Original Post from Blog.TheNetImpact.com

Displaying your Twitter feed on your website is a wonderful way to show visitors real-time news and events. An attractive Twitter widget can encourage your website’s audience to follow you on Twitter, serving as an additional method for expanding your network. Furthermore, when designed right, a Twitter feed can improve the aesthetics of a website’s layout.

The Twitter Feed module in the Auctori content management system allows users to display their Tweets anywhere on their website. This module takes your most recent Tweets and displays them automatically within an easy to read list for your visiting users. Users have full control over their avatar, how many Tweets to display and even specific grammar settings.

• Display a customized number of Tweets
• Choose whether or not to show your Avatar
• Customizable your Avatar size
• Ability to specify a personalized title
• Styled to match your website for a seamless integration
• Control over past, present and link grammar

learn more about the Auctori web content management system at: www.auctori.com

Recently, Facebook created the Facebook. This button extends Facebook’s like feature to other sites on the web. If users are logged into their facebook account, then they can “like” or “recommend” a web page to all of their facebook friends as they are reading it from the site.

Facebook is the most popular social media network,  everyone from age 11 to 77 are on Facebook. Each user has a news feed where they see updates from their friends. The news feed shows the link their friends like, people their friend added, pages their friends became a fan of and much more. Now if a user has 410 facebook friends, and he clicks “like” on your post, then it will be shown to all of his 410 friends. This is the best free word of mouth advertising you can get. But this does not end here. It gets better. Lets say, Angela  likes a link from one site, and Randy also clicks like on that same link. Lauren who is a mutual friend of both Angela and Randy will see a text like:

Your Friends Angela and Randy liked The Net Impact’s  Link: Who Had the Assist to Your Conversion Goal?

The like feature  is powerful because not only create an excellent platform for word of mouth advertising, but by mentioning two friends liking this post Lauren is twice as likely to click like on your link. This button has the potential to  making your article go viral on facebook.

Find out more about coding and customize your Facebook Like button here.